Boonville school grounds bear brunt of storm, many lack power | VIDEO, GALLERY

Officials declared a state of emergency in the city Saturday and asked that anyone not a resident or on official business stay away from the area while cleanup from Friday’s storm continues.

Inside of a classroom at Boonville High on Saturday. School personnel and volunteers spent the day cleaning the rooms after high winds on Friday severely damaged the roof, causing heaving water damage.

BOONVILLE, Ind. - Officials declared a state of emergency in the city Saturday and asked that anyone not a resident or on official business stay away from the area while cleanup from Friday's storm continues.

As of 6 p.m. Saturday, nearly 2,000 customers remained without power in the city, and Vectren spokesmen say it could be Tuesday before all power is restored.

Still, by Saturday afternoon the sounds of chainsaws filled the air as people cleared debris and assessed damage throughout the city.

The winds ripped off a portion of the high school's roof, crushed nearby sports facilities, uprooted century-old trees and sent heavy equipment flying.

"Our campus is going to look a lot different," said Boonville High School Principal Mike Whitten on Saturday afternoon as he oversaw the initial cleanup effort.

Athletes pitch in

Volunteers — many of them student athletes —helped clean and repair the school. A few students from the Gibson Southern High softball team — Boonville's rival — also came to help.

Several sports outbuildings were either damaged or destroyed. The football scoreboard was knocked down. And a 500-pound pole vault pit mat was blown about 50 meters onto the roof of a two-story building.

A local roofing company, Lehman Brothers, made significant progress to repair the school roof Saturday. The storm had ripped much of it away, leaving classrooms and hallway's exposed.

But workers were limited because the building had no power.

Rick Madden, the Warrick County School Corp. manager of custodians, had employees and volunteers clearing away saturated ceiling tiles that either covered the floors or sagged from the ceiling. Officials will assess the damage to classroom equipment after power is restored.

Whitten has no estimate yet as to how much the repairs will cost, or how long they will take.

He and Warrick County School Corp. Superintendent Brad Schneider will decide Sunday afternoon whether the school will open Monday.

The most important thing is no one was hurt, Whitten said.

When the storm hit Friday, about 200 students were in and around the high school for baseball and softball practice, and a middle school-high school choir.

"It just happened so quickly," Whitten said. "There just wasn't any time, the sirens weren't going off. I actually came out of the auditorium and saw the winds blowing and just immediately got on the intercom, before we lost electricity, and told everybody to get to a safe area."

All safe

Whitten said all the students, faculty and parents at the school made it to safety.

The same is true elsewhere in the community: No one was injured or killed during Friday's storm. But its tear through the community was a harrowing experience.

"We had to scramble down under the house, into the storm shelter," said 47-year old Keith Hodge, who lives on First Avenue and Walnut Street in Boonville. "It tore part of my roof off. It blew the windows out in my garage. But we were lucky, man. We were lucky (not to be injured).

"When we tried to open the door, you couldn't see. It just looked like trees and green leaves. You could see nothing but wind, (stuff) blowing in the backyard."

Flower shop employee Sam Myres, 19. said he was driving back from Chandler when the storm hit.

"It got really dark in the span of about a minute. It was blinding rain. I couldn't see more than 10 feet.

"I was using whatever basic shape of the road, and people were coming still. I don't know why I was still driving, and I don't know why they were driving. I got off the road and pulled off into a parking lot somewhere.

"I don't exactly know where it was, but my car was still getting shaken, which was ‘fun.' The main reason I pulled over was not because I was creeping along, but because I started seeing limbs come down."

Of course, the store was opened shortly after the storm hit, in advance of Sunday's holiday.